Scientists exploring seamounts off the coast of Costa Rica have discovered a new coral so genetically and morphologically distinct that it required the creation of an entirely new family for its classification. Bright yellow and tree-like, the coral was found growing some 360 to 529 metres beneath the surface of the Pacific. The discovery is described in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

The colonies, which can grow to over a metre tall, were collected using the remotely operated vehicle SuBastian aboard the research vessels Falkor and Falkor (too), operated by the Schmidt Ocean Institute, during expeditions to the seamounts off Isla del Coco and the Costa Rican Pacific margin in 2019 and 2023.

Researchers found the coral thriving in large numbers on rocky outcrops that were almost entirely blanketed by brittle stars, creating a shimmering, star-strewn seafloor from which the golden coral branches rose like glowing trees.

That image inspired the coral’s name. The new genus, Laurinque, comes from “Laurinquë”, meaning “golden tree” in Quenya, the Elvish language devised by J.R.R. Tolkien for The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, chosen in reference to the colonies’ bright yellow, tree-like form.

The species name, elenya, is Quenya for “stellar” or “of the stars”, a nod to the fields of brittle stars among which the coral was discovered. Together, the pairing evokes a scene the researchers likened to a mystical elvish landscape on the deep seafloor.

Working out where this coral belonged in the coral family tree proved unusually difficult. The team sequenced three genes commonly used to classify corals, and each one pointed to a different, unrelated family, an unusually high level of disagreement.

To settle the question, researchers turned to phylogenomics, analysing hundreds of genes at once. This revealed that the coral does not belong to any known family at all, but represents a unique evolutionary lineage most closely related to the family Eunicellidae, but distinct enough in both its genetics and its anatomy to warrant a new family, Laurinqueidae, and a new genus, Laurinque, built specifically to house it.

“I saw the octocoral garden for the first time in 2019 and I was impressed by the beauty of the landscape, which inspired, later the elvish name of the taxa. I thought the species could belong to a known family and genera, but after the preliminar morphological analysis I realised that it was something very different that I could not match with the known taxa.

In 2023 we collected more samples and thanks to the exhaustive molecular analyses made by my colleagues, Cathy McFadden, Catalina Murillo and Andrea Quattrini, we were able to determine the taxonomic placement of the stunning species, in one of the most enigmatic sites,” said Dr Odalisca Breedy of the Universidad de Costa Rica, lead researcher on the study.

The research was led by Dr Breedy, working alongside an international team of collaborators. The expeditions were supported by the Schmidt Ocean Institute and a National Geographic Society research grant.

The discovery adds to a growing list of undocumented species being revealed on Costa Rica's seamounts, and demonstrates how much of the deep ocean, which covers roughly two-thirds of the planet's surface, remains unexplored. Coral gardens such as these are considered vulnerable marine ecosystems, providing structurally complex habitat for a wide range of other deep-sea life.

Breedy O, McFadden CS, Murillo-Cruz C, Yánez-Suárez A-B, Robert K, Quattrini AM (2026) A coral among stars: A new octocoral family (Anthozoa, Octocorallia, Malacalcyonacea) from seamounts in the tropical eastern Pacific. ZooKeys 1283: 253-272. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1283.191899